


Skin Deep

by 3205



Category: Empire (TV 2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-05 21:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16375664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3205/pseuds/3205
Summary: Andre knows Tiana is a robot. He has to stop the invasion.





	Skin Deep

**Author's Note:**

> AU Halloween challenge fic, earlier seasons pre-Eddie. Written for [Spook Me Multi-Fandom Ficathon 2018](https://spook-me.dreamwidth.org/). Author chosen prompt: robot. Given prompts: [Image #1](https://images60.fotki.com/v1621/photos/6/3814576/14859667/__bathory_by_dragon_batd8byi4s-vi.jpg), [Image #2](https://images46.fotki.com/v297/photos/6/3814576/14859667/rtindiegosadaba3_jpg1530630052-vi.jpg).

SKIN DEEP

 

Tiana stood slightly to the left of the elaborate crystal chandelier, where the diffuse light cast her partly in a warm shadowy glow. The prisms splayed muted rainbows on her glowing skin, rippling back and forth across her collarbones as she shook her long hair back from her shoulders. It was loosely curled tonight and fell down her back in soft chestnut waves. She wore a fitted shimmery peacock blue dress, the hem just barely decent. Her legs were covered in black fishnet and her platform heels were dark charcoal gray. It was somewhat understated for Tiana, Andre noted. His gaze returned to her face and their eyes met across the room. Normally full of light, Tiana's eyes narrowed, a reddish spark flashing in the corners. She glared at him violently.

Andre blinked and quickly averted his eyes to his half-empty glass of scotch. It had happened again. The eye spark and the vicious glare. He was not imagining it. His large hand tightened around the heavy square glass, his knuckles paling with the intensity of the grip. No, not imagining it. Not after the third time in as many days. He had been experiencing strange feelings when around Tiana, and even glimpsing what he determined was her real countenance; a truth hidden underneath her skin and smile and perfect facade. Andre breathed shallowly, desperately willing himself not to turn his eyes back to Tiana. He couldn't deal with this now. He had business to conduct, a modicum of professionalism to maintain. He could not panic in the middle of this party.

His preoccupation with Tiana had made him lose concentration mid-sentence. Sheryl (or Sarah?) raised a bristly eyebrow at him, waiting for him to finish. Andre cleared his throat delicately and took a slow sip of his drink, giving himself time to redirect his thoughts. Despite his efforts, Andre had completely forgotten what he had been going to say to the lanky broad-shouldered woman, and why he was even talking to her in the first place. In his mind, he heard Tiana's low chuckle. He felt her eyes boring into his spine. She would not be ignored. Andre shoved his glass into the hands of a bewildered Siobhan from the accounting department and stalked away towards Tiana. Siobhan shrugged and finished off Andre's drink.

Tiana was a robot. Andre was one-hundred percent certain now. He had to be, and he needed irrefutable proof before he openly declared her a threat. If he went to anyone with patchy theories or circumstantial evidence or anecdotes, he'd simply be dismissed outright at best. He dared not think of the worst, and honestly the most likely, outcome of an unsubstantiated claim of this ilk. Even with proof, Andre would be potentially risking alienation and perhaps outright renouncement from his family. Though Andre was afraid of the consequences, Tiana had to be exposed.

Andre was accosted by his mother before he reached Tiana. Cookie stepped directly in front of him, knowing her son would stop short of trampling her. She had that presence, that which demanded attention even from the most distracted of individuals. No one ignored Cookie Lyon. She was displeased and it showed in her eyes, though she smiled beatifically and nodded at passing party-goers. Andre caught Tiana's smirk over Cookie's shoulder. It chilled him. For a moment, his eyes lingered on a thick braided cable winding its way through Tiana's mass of hair.

"Dre!" Cookie hissed, her deep red fingernail tips digging into his arm, trying to get him to look at her. "What are you doing?"

"Tiana w-"

"No. No," her perfectly manicured nails tapped his chest pointedly. Andre finally looked down at her, Tiana's spell broken for the moment. He was biting his bottom lip and a slight crease showed between his eyebrows. Andre was on the verge of panicking and Cookie knew it. She stopped herself from glaring angrily at him, but her words were terse.

"You turn your ass right back around and go charm Siobhan," she said. "We are closing on that deal by Wednesday and you two are going to make it happen. Find the money somewhere and do it fast."

Cookie was gone in an instant, before Andre could voice acquiescence, her irritation lingering in her wake. Andre shot one last glance at Tiana. She was now speaking with Hakeem and laughing, her sparkling eyes bearing not even a trace of the earlier malice. The cable was gone, retracted back inside her head.

Andre took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He resolved himself that it was better to confront Tiana in a more private setting, this could not be rushed. He had really no idea of the evils Tiana might be capable of. Logically, more study was needed. Being brash would only prove to be detrimental to Andre himself if he were not properly prepared. He plastered a smile on his face, grabbed fresh drinks from a nearby waiter's tray, and returned to Siobhan.

"I'm sorry about that, Siobhan," Andre handed her a glass. "I thought I saw an old friend."

"That's perfectly alright, Mr. Lyon," Siobhan responded perfunctorily, gulping down her drink. She hated Empire's massive parties, but they always had good booze.

"Let's get down to business, shall we?" Andre touched her bare shoulder lightly, leaning closer and trying not to choke on her cloying flowery perfume.

//

Andre hung up the phone and nodded satisfactorily. His unlicensed "private investigator" had confirmed his suspicions of Tiana's odd nocturnal ventures. Andre placed his notes in the desk drawer. He buried the beat-up notebooks under spreadsheets and general office memos. No one had found them yet and he was confident in the security of his investigation materials. He kept everything written down physically, quickly noting early on that Tiana could plausibly have access to the computers in his home and office without his knowledge.

The photographs he'd gathered were taken with an analogue camera. Andre always took them himself, fearing how easily they could be manipulated. He couldn't trust too many people either, not knowing who knew what and who could be completely counted on for their silence and loyalty. Andre had the photographs processed at a tiny hole-in-the-wall darkroom in Brooklyn. Andre asked no questions of what other types of photos they dealt with and tried to ignore the sickening fetish portraits adorning the hallway every time he ventured into the cave-like apartment. The latest envelope of developed photos sat on his desk, as yet unopened.

Andre picked it up now, feeling oddly nervous. Nervous that the photos would reveal exactly what he saw. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Andre held a strange hope that he really was just imagining it all. Because then it would be over. The months of surveillance and research would be for naught, but it would be over. If it were true, what other plots and infiltration had already been started? How deep did this go? Was Tiana the only one?

He slid out the photographs slowly and sifted through them. He was right. Evidence of Tiana's true self was revealed in every single photo. The more he closely examined them, the more of _her_ Andre saw. Bolts and wires and alien-like metallic plating. In one particularly telling photo, Tiana was waving at someone, her other hand barely in frame and slightly blurred in the background. Andre saw it was not a hand at all, but instead Tiana's forearm seemed to blend flesh and metal. A pipe-like protrusion stuck through the skin near her elbow, taking the place of what should be the end of her arm and her hand. It was smooth and gray, with bands of gold bolted to it. The end of the pipe seemed like an attachment for prosthetic limbs, narrowing near the "wrist", and from that emerged a round disk with small blades attached, their design akin almost to flower petals. In another shot from across the street, a metal tail-like appendage peeked out from beneath Tiana's long coat.

This was absolute proof. It was time.

//

"What do you mean 'weird'?" Hakeem frowned, pulling the brim of his hat lower, hoping no one recognized him in this place.

He and Andre were sitting at a dimly lit booth in a seedy truck stop in New Jersey at four in the morning. Hakeem had only agreed to meet there because Andre had seemed so desperate and so secretive. Andre refused to tell him anything over the phone, and had called from an unknown number which Hakeem refused to answer until the third straight call. Hakeem was on edge all the way to New Jersey, thinking something terrible had happened, or Andre had gotten himself into something really shady. But now that he was here, all Andre wanted to talk about was Tiana. Hakeem was irritated and uninterested, messing with his phone while Andre droned on in the background.

"Strange, different. She doesn't look the same," Andre explained hurriedly. "It doesn't feel the same talking to her. You have to have noticed."

Andre was cautious in revealing too much at once, in case Hakeem was somehow in on it. He'd chosen this place specifically to feel him out. Andre had paid in advance for the security tapes from the truck stop diner and planned to collect them after his brother left. Andre had to be absolutely sure.

"You're the one acting weird, Dre," Hakeem threw up his hands, almost flinging his phone onto the floor. "Tiana is totally fine. Nothing is going on."

"Shh," Andre hissed, though Hakeem had barely raised his voice.

Andre didn't look good at all. His eyes were rimmed with dark purple, deep lines inching their way down the sides of his nose. His face was stubbly with a two day beard. Hakeem couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Andre wear a ratty t-shirt in public. Andre was decidedly unkempt, and his perpetual frown and hooded eyes conveyed an air of a man in the midst of a crisis. Andre looked frightened almost and Hakeem was getting worried, but annoyed at the same time. Why was the secret meeting necessary? What was Andre getting at? He'd been the strange one lately, not Tiana.

"Please, just listen," Andre said fiercely. Hakeem kept interrupting him and was barely paying attention. Andre now suspected Hakeem knew absolutely nothing of his girlfriend's secrets. He could move ahead and finally entrust someone else with his painstakingly gathered information.

Hakeem was about to suggest they get out of the scuzzy diner and discuss whatever-it-was later, but Andre muttered something under his breath that made Hakeem stop short and really pay attention to the man.

"What did you say?"

"I said," Andre stated flatly and with conviction, "she's a robot and we have to destroy her."

Hakeem didn't respond. Andre spread photographs out in front of him. He pointed out Tiana's reflective eyes in one, the pixelated glitching around her irises in the next. Tiana's eyes nothing but black holes, from a security camera still. Tiana's wrist where she had opened a little electrical panel in her skin.

"See? And here, her foot is gone," Andre shoved another picture at him. "You can see where the wheel gets screwed in. There's a picture of that somewhere here, too. And then in this one, she's-

"Andre. Andre," Hakeem covered Andre's hand with own, on top of the photograph of Tiana putting on her shoes. "This is just- are you serious?"

"Yes, of course I am. You see it clearly right here. Tiana is-"

"Tiana is," Hakeem started, grabbing the photographs and slapping them on the table one by one. "Tiana is putting on a bracelet, not opening an electrical panel in her fucking skin! Tiana is wearing sunglasses, she still has eyes. Tiana is wearing blue contacts and nothing is glitching like a damn video game."

Hakeem wasn't yelling so much as hissing emphatically. He didn't want anyone in the truck stop looking at them any more than they already were. This whole situation was ridiculous and he'd laugh it if also wasn't so tragic. Andre was out of his mind.

"You don't see it," Andre said, more to himself than to Hakeem. He pushed himself up out of the booth and left the diner, retrieving the security tape from the man at the truck stop office.

//

In his dusty and neglected home office, Andre reviewed the security footage. He saw himself walking into the diner, a bit conspicuously he had to admit. Andre waited a few minutes at the back booth, glancing at the other patrons occasionally and waving the waitress away. After the second time he checked his watch, Hakeem slid into the booth across from him. Hakeem's eyes looked up toward the camera and they were glowing white.

"No," Andre whispered, staring more intently at the footage.

He and Hakeem were talking, leaning close so others wouldn't hear. Andre stiff and hunched, apparently trying to make himself smaller as if no one would be able to see him. Hakeem twitching and moving around, anxious to leave and annoyed at being there in the first place. Andre said something and Hakeem gestured with his hands.

Andre paused the tape.

Hakeem's hands. They were gray, fleshless. Skeletal. Matte metal rectangular bone-like digits with circular joints, the tips of the fingers sharp and long like claws. The right robot-hand held a gun.

Andre shut off the tape and huddled under his desk. Hakeem was a robot, too. Was Jamal? Their parents? How many more were there? What other weapons did they have? How could they cloak their presence from the majority of humanity? It must be some kind of invasion. He had no way of knowing who the robots were and a large scale defense could not be undertaken. Andre would have to destroy them on his own. He would have to-

The doorbell rang, interrupting his thoughts. He gathered himself together and opened the door.

They were standing in his doorway, the robots. She with her long tendrils of wire-hair, gears and segmented tails, so intricate and alien. He was dull and gray, sparse in detail and utilitarian, a soldier, a follower, the gun held at his side as if anticipating Andre wouldn't fight back. But he would.

//

Hakeem had made a very bad decision. Very, very bad. He pressed his body hard against the locked bathroom door, bracing his foot against the bathtub. Andre was near to knocking it off its hinges. Hakeem felt the next blow reverberate through his entire body. He didn't know how much longer he could hold out. He was openly crying now, and desperately stretching his splayed fingers out for his phone. It had fallen out of his hand in the scuffle and then he'd accidentally kicked it away when he wedged himself against the door. He had turned it off earlier to have no interruptions when he and Tiana talked with Andre. Hakeem shuddered with another pounding blow against the door. A screw fell from one of the hinges. Hakeem squeezed his eyes shut, but only for a second as all he saw with them closed was Tiana.

Tiana lying on Andre's plush cream carpet, staining it a rusty burgundy with her blood. Andre hadn't believed them, not for one moment. He had even thought Hakeem to be a robot. He'd immediately torn into Tiana's arm, flaying the muscle and tendons, digging for wires and circuitry. Tiana's screams were horrific and deafening. Hakeem had screamed then too, but hadn't been aware of it. Andre was yelling about stopping the robot takeover and shoving Tiana's bloody arm at him. Tiana bled out quickly while Hakeem watched, frozen to the spot and still screaming. Andre dropped her lifeless body to the floor and proceeded to try and decapitate her, wrenching her neck around and digging into her throat. Hakeem threw up then and suddenly found the drive to run. The bathroom was closest and Hakeem only realized his mistake after he had barricaded himself inside.

Another screw fell as Hakeem heard sirens drawing near. Hopefully, someone had called the police. The door flew open, half-attached to the frame. Hakeem slid himself across the floor, grabbing his phone, and hunched near the sink. Andre calmly sat down in the middle of the bathroom, holding Tiana's head in his hands.

"I couldn't be fooled, Hakeem. It's really very intricate," Andre's big bloody fingers traced the exposed vertebrae and nerves hanging from Tiana's head. "Almost convincing, except for the eyes. You can always tell by the eyes first."

Hakeem shakily held his phone, trying to turn it on without taking his eyes off Andre. Andre dropped the head and advanced.

//

A tragedy, it was pronounced in the media. Two shining young stars of hip-hop savagely murdered. The killer almost sympathetic himself, insisting he'd only disposed of the robots infiltrating the human race.

"One of them had a gun," he calmly told police.

They rifled through boxes of "evidence" of the robots, only finding hundreds of stalker-ish photographs and months worth of notebooks filled with nonsensical theories and diagrams written in a stilted heavy hand.


End file.
